Thoughts on nature, meditation and cabin life

March 2010

March 31, 2010

What our society is most lacking, I believe, is a sense of community. Maybe that’s why I love reading the Allenspark Wind, which calls itself “a journal of the life and times of Allenspark, Ferncliff, Longs Peak, Meeker Park, Peaceful Valley, Raymond, and Riverside, Colorado.”

In an age where most people get their news from the Internet, it’s a pleasure to hold the Allenspark Wind in my hands and read about the barbecue lunch held at the Hilltop Guild or the most creative costume at the Halloween party (dressed as the Allenspark Wind) or read about the pet of the month.

You won’t find the kind of news you find in most newspapers: new laws being passed, people being arrested, or tax revenue down. Instead, local groups, such as the Hilltop Guild, report on their latest activities, which usually center on quilting, garden programs, and planning for future events, such as classes on decorating gourds and making sugar-free jellies and talks on horticulture in the mountains. This is not trivial stuff. This is the stuff that knits the community together.

The Wind (named for the ferocious gusts that drop over the mountains from the west) usually has one or two obits, written in depth and with love. In a community as small as Allenspark, this is important news, because this is someone you know or a neighbor or someone who had a vital role in building and maintaining the community.

Any real “news” comes in the form of lengthy articles about the pine beetle, its progress, and the latest theories on how to fight the bug that is killing off our forests; or in the “AFPD emergency calls” column (“September 6, 12:55 p.m. Lost party, party found on Lab Road, 9 Allenspark personnel responded. Incident terminated at 1:45 p.m.”).

Most of the Wind, which is in the form of an 8 ½-by-11 inch newsletter, consists of columns. One of my favorites is “Weather Talk” by Dr. William Rense who tracks the temperatures and precipitation on a daily basis in the valley, compares it to historical patterns and comes up with a prediction or conclusion about our current state, such as whether we’ve received enough precipitation to make it through the summer.

The pastor of the New Covenant Church writes a column about religious matters, touting, in one issue, the benefits of prayer, while a local rancher relates stories, written in a folksy cowboy style, about ranching life in the valley—like the time he helped reunite a mother cow and her calf, even when it made no economic sense.

My favorite articles are about local history, like the one in the June 2009 issue by a woman who spent childhood summers at a souvenir store run by her parents, just down the road from Allenspark. “We played outside all day, building forts, damming the nearby creek to make splash pools and just wandering through the woods.” These stories evoke for me a different time, when life was slower and simple things, like playing in the creek, were fine amusements.

Another issue related the life of a local photographer who took photos starting in 1913 at age six and didn’t stop untilone week before his deathin 2000. In the intervening time, he documented decades of change in the Estes Park-Allenspark area.The picture of Lily Lake, which graces the cover of the December 2009 Allenspark Wind (above), was taken in 1922 and showsa very different lake than the present one: a lot fewer trees and what looks like a beaver house on one end, which is no longer there.I know this because I walk and kayak around Lily Lake frequently.

So these photos are a reminder that even nature changes. And these articles about Allenspark’shistory not only give me an appreciation of what life was life but add to the complexity of this place, add layers to my knowledge of people and places no longer here.

My favorite column is by David Steiner, a thoughtful and elegant writer: In “My Mountains,” last April, he talked about the founding of the Allenspark Wind 35 years ago, spurred, it seems, by the Estes Park papers ignoring Allenspark and the surrounding area. The paper’s readers consist of 160 local subscribers and 500 from all over the country.

“It’s safe to say that the WIND fills a need in our community, a need that cannot be filled by any other entity at the moment,” he wrote. “A non-profit volunteer monthly journal in an unincorporated village of fewer than 300 souls? And yet, thirty-five years later, here it is.”

I find it intriguing that the number of readers outside of Allenspark exceeds those living in the area by almost four to one. I’m guessing these are summer visitors who want to stay in touch all year or people who lived here but, for whatever reason (old age, sickness) had to leave.I think it’s an indication of the draw of this valley, of the love people have for it, that they want to stay connected. They want to know when the first bear sighting is in spring (and see the picture), find out what ‘s going on with their former neighbors, and how much precipitation we got last month. Or the Hilltop Guild’s theme for the spring fashion show.

March 21, 2010

Every year, starting in February, thousands of sandhill cranes leave their winter roost in southern New Mexico and head for their summer home in Idaho. Along the way, they stop in southern Colorado, near Monte Vista, for a month or so to fatten up on the grains that farmers leave on their fields from last summer’s crops.

And every year in March, I leave my winter home in Boulder and head south to Monte Vista to welcome the cranes. Their trip is slightly longer than mine and more difficult, though mine is not without some issues (trying to find vegetarian food and bathrooms along the way). But for me, it’s a rite of spring.

When I see the sandhill cranes gather in these fields with the Spanish Peaks (above) in the distance, I know that winter is coming to an end, that these cranes are following their instinct to move north, where they will mate and have their chicks. It’s the same calling they’ve been obeying for thousands of years, because these cranes are one of the oldest species of animals and were here when dinosaurs roamed the land. (Ah, the stories they could tell, if only we had the knowledge to understand them.)

This year, our time together coincided with a major winter storm that closed some of the passes to the west, dumped 20 inches of snow in the mountains and brought blizzard conditions to the San Luis Valley, snow arriving horizontally and thickly (above).While we humans huddled in the car, the cranes made the best of it, sweeping the snow with their beaks to find the grains underneath. The heavy snow didn’t stop them from their usual social interactions: two or three leaping up into the air at the same time, coming back down with their wings spread, which can be a testy encounter or a prelude to mating. Some, perhaps less hardy souls, simply put their heads under their wings to block out the snow while we, also less willing to put up with these conditions, headed into town for a Mexican buffet.

Luckily, the next day—the day we had to leave and head north ourselves—the sun came out.And with clear skies, I could watch the cranes fly, which is the most thrilling part of seeing them. Above us, they travel in small groups, their huge wings slowly and elegantly plowing through the air. And then, in what seems an imperceptible moment, the group decides to land in this field, letting their long feet drop, sometimes quickly banking to slow themselves down, then spreading their wings out to brake, a graceful but powerful motion (right).

At the same time, other flocks are soaring above me, all calling to each other in what sounds like a guttural chattering that fills the sky and the valley with beautiful music. The sky is a mosaic of these beautiful, winged creatures, with their long necks and feet, framed against the backdrop of the deep blue and white mountains.

March 13, 2010

I just got a new computer, and all the new features have gotten me thinking about groundlessness.

We live in a time when the world is changing so fast that it seems daily there’s something new to adjust to. It’s not just upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7, or having to learn the features of a new cell phone, or having to learn new software or social networking programs in order to keep competitive in the workplace. It’s having to cope with change that is so fast it’s dizzying.

I grew up reading books and newspapers and never imagined there would come a day when I wouldn’t be able to hold (and smell) a book in my hands or that I would have to get the day’s news from the Internet. And the city where I’ve lived for almost 40 years is sometimes unrecognizable to me. I go downtown and all the familiar restaurants are gone, replaced with upscale restaurants where I’m not sure I belong or am wanted.

It’s not the change I resent but the pace. I love the Internet and the whole world that opens up every time I get online. My computer has made my job of writing and editing much easier. And getting my news online rather than from newspapers means fewer trees are being cut down.

It’s just the sense that nothing is permanent. Almost every day in some way I feel the rug being pulled out from underneath me, as if there were no stable ground. As a Buddhist, groundlessness is a concept I try to accept, become comfortable with, because it’s an illusion that anything in the world is permanent, much less ourselves.

But there’s another Buddhist concept that I follow, which is to always be aware, to have my mind settle on where I am and what I’m doing, rather than to be heedlessly chasing 100 stray thoughts.But it’s hard to let your mind settle when the Internet is throwing 20 pieces of information at you every minute and inviting you to follow 20 more threads of information at the same time.

Is it any wonder that I seek refuge in my daily hikes, where the rocks haven’t moved since the last time I was on this trail, where most of the trees are still standing in the same place they were last month, where the landscape only changes with the seasons, and the fastest change is the flowers that might bloom for only a few weeks?

At the cabin, life also changes slowly. In the year and a half I’ve been here, I’ve seen one new cabin go up in Meeker Park. At the Bill Waite cabin across from my place (above), I’m sure the handmade wooden ladder propped against the outside walls and the wooden chairs along the front of the house have not moved for at least 40 years.

In the local newspaper recently a woman recounted the summers she spent as a girl in the Allenspark area, where the author still comes for part of the summer: “It is now the only place on Earth where I can sit in the same spot as when I was a child and look around to see very little changed.” How many places can you say that about?

I know I can’t stop the world from changing. But I’m glad I have one place where life is slow enough that my thoughts can catch up.

March 06, 2010

Pennsylvania may have its Punxsutawney Phil, the ground hog that predicts in February how long winter will last. But at my cabin, I’ve decided that the first sign of spring is the golden-mantled ground squirrel (Spermophilus lateralis) emerging from winter hibernation.

This week, I saw my first one, sitting on the bench beneath my window, and it looked a little dazed. The temperature in its burrow may have registered a warm 45 degrees, but what the heck was all this snow? Shouldn’t it have melted by now?

Cheered by this sign of life returning, I threw a cupful of safflower seeds on the front deck, and within minutes, it was chowing it down, stuffing its cheeks as fast as it could (photographed through plastic window).

So hail to thee, my golden-mantled ground squirrel. May you be safe from marauding hawks and coyotes. May you thrive and replenish the earth with new life. And may you keep me smiling all summer long.